I posted a few weeks ago about a new ferret we adopted by the name of
Suzzie.  She was a terrifying biter and wouldn't let anyone touch her
without taking out a piece of meat from your hand.  A few days after that
I noticed her gagging when she took a drink of water, then noticed her
stools were very small maybe 1/4 inch in length.  She started loosing
weight and refused to eat.  She was grinding her teeth and I thought
maybe she had something stuck at the back of her throat.  I took her to
the vets and was told her throat was badly swollen and inflamed and gave
me some antibiotics for her.  I mistakenly believed she would eat when
she was hungry so didn't do much of anything for the next two days except
force the amoxil down her throat with a suringe.  She became very weak
and so in desperation we forced her to eat some baby food (Gurber's
chicken, strained) about 4 c.c.  worth.  A phone call to the vets
informed us that she needed at least 40-50 c.c.  a day to keep her going.
She basically refused to eat at all, so I checked the FAQ about Duck
Soup....  made it up and started force feeding that to her.  after
watering it down more, she started eating it off my finger, then after a
few days, would lick it out of the dish, then me changed her to
blenderized iams kitten food, then finally back to her regular purina cat
food.  I guess I got a little off topic regarding idgie but it seems to
me that all the signs and symtoms were the same.....  drastic change of
environment, followed by stress and the resulting problems.Suzzy started
to play 2 days ago and her health has improved tremendusly.  She no
longer bites and even tolerates the other ferrets.  I don't know why her
throat swelled up, She wasn't exposed to anything the other 3 weren't,
but I truly believe stress caused this near death experience.
ps... the vet was pretty interested in the FAQ on ferrets... I gave
him a copy.
 
Richard Beveridge
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[Posted in FML issue 1248]